


Tea Journal

by Ler



Category: Fables - Willingham, Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/M, Ficmix, Minor Character Death, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 23:57:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4119256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ler/pseuds/Ler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Which there is an Exile, and the Queen of Fairies and the King of Goblins run a 300-year old apothecary turned flower store turned tea shop in the Village and mind their own business. Literally. </p><p>(Also features Queens, Wolves, Witches, Princes and kids with twitter.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea Journal

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank random neo-pagan websites and Pinterest for research material and a bunch of tea recipes, Christina Rossetti, Adrianne Rich, Pablo Neruda, Albert Camus, Herman Hesse, Scottish folklore and Mr Yeats, the writers of Fables for ruining my life and the Strange Magic fandom for being the actual cinnamon bun (too good, too pure, too perfect for this world), which I will never be good enough for. 
> 
> Warning: Sexual content, minor swearing and dog puns. (Also thoughts on the nature of life and death and rebirth, of isolation and cultural appropriation, of overcoming contempt and adjusting, of reimagining the world, and reimagining oneself through it, and some easier concepts, like loss, hope, purpose and, most importantly, love.)

[Tea Journal](http://8tracks.com/bifacial_ler/tea-journal?utm_medium=trax_embed) from [bifacial_ler](http://8tracks.com/bifacial_ler?utm_medium=trax_embed) on [8tracks Radio](http://8tracks.com?utm_medium=trax_embed).

 

«Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.»

Herman Hesse, _Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte_

 

 

**1 - Rosehip, Cinnamon & Rose petals**

“Spirits, I hate this,” she tells him on a summer night when the blue-red of the police lights pass down their street, and the curtains bash in the open window – Bog will fix the AC tomorrow but she is hot now (she was never _hot_ before, not as a fairy, but she is now, and it _sucks_ , how can Mundies stand this) – and her dark purple nails draw flaming lines down his very human sweaty shoulder blades (they are not wings but his reaction is the same) and the old bed creaks under them.

 

“You always say that,” he replies, rocking against her, raising himself, eyes closed, breathing deep yet erratic. She studies him, anew: he is different every time, it’s their little game – trace her fingers up his sides, count his ribs, judge the width and thickness of his chest and the sparse hair decorating it, and his shoulders, they always give him such a good set of shoulders.

 

Draw patterns on his tense arms (sometimes over the patterns he already has engraved into him, wild flowers blooming, vines crawling, bones and claws and lines and this time, because he asked, thorns ripping through his skin – she likes these, what they represent, what he lacks, what she misses).

 

Cup his face in your palms, think of it, and of the face you love, and look at it again, searching – find the point of his nose, and the sharp scratch of his brow, discover thin soft lips, bitten, bruised, cracking, and the beloved sliver of blue behind the thickest of eyelashes. It’s the mess of hair that falls over his face that always bothers her, it seems less natural to him than tanned scared skin, or short shovel-like nails of his fingers, but here is some good of it.

 

He’ll let her do whatever she wants with it later, but now she grabs the chunk of it and pulls him down for a mouthy hungry kiss.

 

“It’s too hot,” she lets go of him, and allows her head to fall down, eyes closing, hands searching for something, anything else to hold onto that isn’t him, and finding the headboard. “Have at it, dear.”

 

His lips tickle up her cheekbone. “As ye wish, luv.”

 

Teeth bite into her neck, ravenous, nose burying in a nook behind her ear, as he covers her whole, still large, and hard, and heavy, and furnace-hot, and she can’t breath, can’t think, just imagines chunks of plating chaffing against her skin, talons tearing into her hips to leave bloody marks to lick apologetically, but later, after he’s done fucking her into the headboard to a possessive string of heavily accented obscenities in her ear.

 

 

 

 

**(2) Dream 1: Cinder and Smoke**

 

The Dark Forest burns.

 

Fire blooms a halo bright as sunset, filling up every nook and cranny, the corners of the woods that never saw the light of day.

Birds flee, flocks like swarms in the orange of the sky.

 

“We have to go,” she says, her hand finding his. “Bog, we have to leave. “

 

The Goblin King stares incredulously at his burning kingdom, and stops breathing.

 

There are tears filling her eyes but she bites them back. His staff starts slipping from his grasp, but she puts it right back, with force.

 

Then she punches him in the gut as hard as she can. He wheezes.

 

“We have to go now.” She shudders. “We have to go and guide our people, Bog,”

 

He looks at her, still wide-eyed and strangely numb, and nods. He raises his hand and wipes water off her face.

 

“Show the way,” he turns and doesn’t look back. Ever again.

 

 

 

The Adversary takes their kingdoms in a single night.

 

Marianne wears her father’s crown. Bog doesn’t ask why.

 

 

 

 

**3 - C** **hamomile** **,** **eleuthero** **root, linden, valerian root & licorice root**

 

Ten summers ago Marianne was Mundie old – seventy, maybe eighty. Her skin was covered in wrinkles and spots and discolorations, constellations of brown dots spreading on her body from head to tow, and he counted them a million times. She hid her hair, first fiery red, then slowly, as the years took hold, with streaks of salt here and there, and finally, dandelion white, under a purple polka dot chief that she put on every morning and he took off for her every evening after they closed the flower shop they owned back then.

 

Back then it was a different life, a different backstory that they had to remember, and parts of it still sipped through: in a way Marianne sometimes set up a bouquet near the cashier (it took fifty year, but she learned how to make a half-decent flower composition), how he read a paper in the morning, and she made a list of all the things they might need to buy at the markets on Sunday, both Mundie and Fabletown, how she would frown about something or other, and her new fringe would fall over her face and he would tuck it right behind her ear. How he would go back to the Scottish accent from time to time without thinking, because the story has it, his father was a Scottish immigrant into this wondrous country of America. Because in one of the lives before that we has that industrious Scottish immigrant, and Marianne wore petticoats and skirts and hated her human clothing more then he ever hated his (he still does, but learned to tolerate it).

 

_There is nothing like a commercial proposition to grow a Scottish heart_ , someone told him back then (and he kept repeating it, such a convincing turn of words), but it was always Marianne who came up with these business ventures they kept finding themselves in, and, to even bigger surprise, succeeding.

 

He has to admit, the stupid teashop was a stroke of genius.

 

 

 

Within five human lifetimes Marianne makes him get out of bed every morning, makes him eat, makes him live, holds him to her chest during the night.

 

(this world turned them practically immortal – it’s a complicated idea, but for humans they are no more than a… fairytale, a story told to children, and that is exactly why they exist, why they will never die)

 

Within five human lifetimes Bog never stops loving her.

 

 

 

**(4) Dream 2: The Great Escape (Marianne’s Plight)**

 

_The Snow White is Big. Or rather they are small. No,_ Bog corrects himself _, they are_ tiny _._

 

“What do you want me to do?”

 

It’s a good question. Marianne walks back and forth on Snow White’s desk, her legs counting the paces between the lamp and the inkwell – everything is so big here, and she is just a bug, stick legs and arms, but her father’s crown gleams on her head, and she purses her lips, and frowns her brow, staring them, the giants of her world, down – in an attempt to formulate what it is that she wants, what they want, what their people need.

 

“We need a place of our own,” Bog says – he feels strangely calm, unlike Marianne, who grows agitated by the minute, he is still strangely calm. “We are a part of Nature, can’t live without it.”

 

“Then Farm it is,” the woman picks up her pen – it’s the size of Bog’s staff – and writes something down. She rubs her face, crease forming between her eyebrows. “Anything else?”

 

Marianne stops pacing and looks up, her face in hard lines.

 

“I can feel Winter coming,” her wings tremble slightly. “We’ll need to migrate.”

 

“Out of question. You go to the Farm and you stay there. Humans can’t catch a swarm of fairies flying through sky.”

 

Marianne’s sword pierces the paper and stick into the tabletop. “We will DIE if left in the cold.”

 

“We’ll _think_ of _something_ ,” hisses their host. “But not right now. We don’t have resources to spare. Unless you want to _help out_. ”

 

Bog studies Marianne’s wings. The edges are a bit singed, but they work just fine, radiant purple shining in the semi-darkness of the room, as she flies up.

 

“What can we do?” She hovers on the line of Snow’s sight. Bog can feel the darkness move behind them, the interior of the office filling up with shadows out of their home worlds, things stolen and saved piled against the walls and within the roots of the great hanging father-tree, suit of armor dangling on one of the branches.

 

“The right question is what do you have to offer?”

 

Another good question. What did they have to offer? He eyes his staff, its familiar weight pulling on his arm, amber glowing slightly from the light of table lamp. Marianne’s sword still stands rigid in the board, its own gleam so different to his – cold, elegantly crafted, and the soft flowery design on its hard metallic blade seems almost like an antagonism within itself – softness of the hard, warmth of the cold, familiarity of the alien.

 

A lover in an enemy, a hardboiled warrior in a sweet and gentle girl, a Queen by a King’s name.

 

An opportunity in the heart of a disaster.

 

“We are a part of Nature,” he says, and thinks: my voice was never this soft. I was never this quiet. “We know herbs, and mushrooms, and trees. This is what we have to offer.”

His voice is low, but they hear him, and Marianne lands before him, bringing a gift of silent disbelieve with her.

 

It tells him: do you know what you are offering?

Do you understand the implications?

 

He nods.

 

“That’s… actually quite a lot,” admits the person they are indenturing themselves to.

 

Marianne’s lips curl. She twists her wrists, forehead wrinkling, wings hard and wide-spread behind her. She closes her eyes and her body, lean frame of her (has she eaten recently? has he eaten? he can’t remember) shudders.

 

“Then there are things to bargain about,” says his Fairy Queen, brow arched and spine straight.

 

Her voice rings like a broken string.

 

 

 

**5 - Goldenrod leaves and flowers, Lemongrass, Hawthorne berries, Ginger root & Licorice root **

 

(It’s funny because the most difficult part of this was understanding the concept of making money, the idea of money itself - the first time they “did the books”, he flipped the table, she laughed hysterically, they got drunk and felt asleep tangled of the floor.

Then they asked for help from somebody who knew what they were doing.)

 

 

 

Snow White calls their new home “the Greenhouse”. Apparently it’s a part of the division of Smalltown, which is one of the areas of the Farm, where you get send when you do not “fit in”.

 

It takes a year to build, a large octagonal structure of brick and glass, warm and safe and light.

 

Their numbers dwindle: the winters are harsh here, air damp, winds freezing to the bone. What’s worse, where the season dared to spare, the hunger did not. Whatever they managed to collect in the short time before the snow covered the ground was barely enough, even with rationing.

 

They try to fit in the ecosystem that does not want them, and like a body expulses foreign objects, this fae-free magic-less world tries to cast them out as well.

 

 

_Too bad_ , he thinks. _It doesn’t know how stubborn both of them can be._

 

 

(in Spring Marianne and Bog bury their dead, and count their living. no one blames them. they blame themselves.)

 

 

When the Greenhouse is ready, it fills in fast, and they plant their first crops.

 

 

The Witch of the Black Forest, an old lady in funeral garb with knitting tied around her fingers, studies them over her glasses. “Back in the old country people would pay good money for you. Or your wings.”

 

“Back in the old country”, says Marianne, “if someone threatened my people, I would have stabbed them.”

 

“Yes, I see what Snow White meant,” laughs the woman and trades with them.

 

 

 

[Marianne, Bog discovers, can stare at somebody without blinking for more than five minutes. It’s truly amazing, granted she tends to do that a lot when it comes to food and buying said food.

 

(Spirits bless the 19th century. They finally stopped asking her why she doesn’t eat meat.) 

 

Marianne scares people in the Sunday market because she hates when someone tries to peddle her rotten fruit. She takes the offending article in her hands, lowers her head and just looks at the vendor with all her 5-foot glory, until he or she gives up and pulls out a crate of something better. Marianne has a thing about quality that Bog can’t quite understand, but respects (and follows it in a way).]

 

 

 

Marianne wears her father’s crown on her ring finger. It gleams in the sun, and so does the wave of chestnut hair that steams down her wingless back.

Bog senses loss, but it’s small, nothing compared to that stone on his chest – _the forest burning, fire consuming everything_ – but he longs for the purple glow and the feeling of the endless sky around them.

 

 

Little by little, Marianne starts smiling.

 

 

**(6) Dream 3: Come buy, come buy (Who knows upon what soil they fed their hungry thirsty roots?)**

They say that Frau Totenkinder used to eat people. That she pulled children into her gingerbread house, fed them up, and watched how they roasted within her large clay’n’brick oven.

 

Marianne and Bog are not children, and the same tongues claim that it’s the stuff of the past life. Still, Frau Totenkinder rules the witches and wizards of the Thirteenth Floor with a will of a woman who buried too many skeletons in her backyard.

 

When he brings her the monthly payment for the glamors, she calls him a sweet little stick-bug.

 

“How are you faring?” she asks, her bony old-woman fingers prodding him in places that make him think of his mother and her insistence. “How’s your spiffy little wife?”

 

He stacks the heavy crate on the coffee table, and lets the magicians swarm it before dear Frau gets a chance to swat them away. “Just fine.” And as an afterthought, adds: “It’s been a good year.”

 

“Good.”

 

She pinches his cheeks, pulls on his ears, and stabs at him with her finger. He endures it, like many other things associated with glamoring. Like clothing. Like having the shirt on his back pulled up to check for “fae” things, and expose the marks of Marianne’s nails.

 

“Tell your wife to cool it down. The spell will not hold if she keeps tearing at it.”

 

“Don’t think it’s entirely her fault,” pulling back his shirt, he valiantly fails to subdue his own shit-eating grin, and the old German cannibal witch slaps him on the arm.

 

“As glad as I am to know that at least one royal marriage around here works, do spare me the details.”

 

Apparently he satisfies her check-up, and her attention switches to his offerings, or whatever remains of them. She shuffles the contents, as invested in it as she was with the quality of her own work, or maybe even more. She raises her hand, fingers snapping, pointing at a girl, pink dress, golden hair, than back at the box. The girl, ever so reluctantly, puts back one of Marianne’s complementary sugar jars (it’s pretty much a jar of flowers and sugar cubes, drowned in moonshine strong enough to blind someone).

 

“Take care of her, she needs it.”

 

“You don’t need to tell me. I always will.” He used to get offended. Not anymore. He just smiles. “Also, I was thinking that I might be older than you.”

 

The Black Forest Witch opens the jar and pulls out a cube, trying it on her unprecedently good teeth. The cube cracks and she chews on it, all pensive, with a soft hum. The air fills with alcohol vapors, and it – or maybe something else, Bog never knows - brings a smile to her wrinkly colorless lips.

 

“What makes you think that, Mr King?”

 

He doesn’t want to admit that in the evenings Marianne reads to him from the books she borrowed from the New York library, and they laugh at the fact that this one runs a diner, this one has a shoes shop, and that Bog and Marianne have to get a spare room for all the Mundie babies they are supposed to be stealing.

 

It occurs to him, that it might be in bad taste.

 

“Aren’t you ever bothered that you are eating fairy food?” he skips the topic. It started to be on his mind lately, the rules and regulations, the supposed powers they are supposed to have and the limitations of said powers. There was nothing magical about him, or Marianne

 

(except for the fact that sometimes, when the moonlight crashes through their window and caresses her skin, it glows softly, the butterfly wings tattooed on her shoulder blades shimmering, and he touches them, reverently, his mind going blank)

 

but there has to be, or so say all the books, and show all the Mundie movies that they watch on Friday nights, there are whole communities dedicated to telling what they are and what are they supposed to do.

 

“I see you’ve done some reading,” the old woman shakes her head. A small chuckle runs through the group of magic aficionados lingering around the living room. “We are, Mr King, what we allow ourselves to be. Do you think your wife possesses the abilities to make actual fairy food? And before you answer that, ask yourself: would she want to?”

 

He pulls on his leather jacket. It’s black, and hard, and probably the only piece of his clothing he will ever like.

 

“That would certainly make our life easier.”

 

“Or so you think,” she says, shuffling her way to the door. “But Mr Wolf would beg to differ.”

 

Yes, can’t forget about the Big Bad Wolf.

 

 

 

**7 - Gotu kola, Skullcap, Nettle, Ginger**

 

After the events on the Farm, Marianne screams bloody murder at Snow.

 

She storms through the Woodland Apartments, fiery retribution in her step. Marianne takes the corners in a wide curve, while he walks behind, a few quick nods to the doorman and the bridge troll, a wave to the eternal janitor on community service, quiet blessings that some things do not change.

He reaches the door just in time for Marianne to slam it behind her. The mated glass rings, the lettering – “The Business Office. S. White” – seems as battered as ever.

He doesn’t follow, just pops himself against the wall by the door, and listens to Marianne’s muffled yelling.

 

A rogue thought, that maybe screaming is not a good way to deal with a woman who was shot in a head with a hunting rifle and still had to get around on a wheelchair, visits him, but then he remembers Marianne’s trembling fingers dialing the Farm and not getting any answer, and wipes it clean off his mind.

 

The door on the other side of the hall opens, and the air fills with the stench of smoke and _dog_. The Sheriff emerges, usual shirt and tie and deep contempt.

 

“Loud one,” he says, staring Bog straight in the eye and lighting up a cigarette. “Your wife.”

 

“Ours is a family of strong minds,” replies Bog, hands curling into fists in his coat pockets. “And even tougher brawl.”

 

“Snow actually likes her,” adds Mr Wolf nonchalantly, mimicking Bog’s semi-relaxed posture. “She is fond of people who don’t try to run this community into the ground.”

 

“Understandable. Spare a smoke?”

 

( _Marianne can fit her sister, her bright-eyed golden haired busybody sister, in the palm of her hand, and his mother in another, and their whole people in her grocery bag._ )

Bigby squints, and chews on the filter, but pulls a pack and a lighter out of his pants.

 

Bog forces his face into some sort of pleasant.

 

“Funny story,” the smoke fills his lungs, light and bitter, nothing like the tar black of the burning damp wood and moss that haunts him, suffocating him in the middle of the night. “The first time my wife visited my castle, she came with an intent to murder me. I wasn’t even in the wrong. I was simply trying to get back what was mine.”

 

It’s amusing how fast Bigby can lose his good humor.

 

“But I kidnapped her sister, and Spirits, if I was any less of a fencer, she would have nailed me to my throne without a second thought. Marianne loves her sister, perhaps even more than she loves herself, and if anything would have happened to her, or her people, or the Greenhouse, well, there would have been more rolling heads than one could count.”

 

It’s quiet behind the door, which means that Marianne probably ran out of breath. Or killed Snow. Or both.

 

Bigby’s nose twitches. Bog can bet that his line of thought is about the same.

So he just smiles.

 

“But it’s good that Ms White handled the situation with minimal casualties, am I right?”

 

The door opens and Marianne steps out. Her face is flushed all the way to her pierced ears, but she sighs in a manner that that gives Bog a pleasant chill all the way up his spine. Wolf leans to the side to look behind her.

 

“I take it you are done, Tough Girl?”

 

“Not quite,” Marianne notices a cigarette in Bog’s hand. Her fingers wrap around his wrist, and press the tobacco stick to her colored lips, quickly breathing in.

 

The smoke pours out of her mouth in a tender plume, like an after-breath of a dragon’s roar, and she leans back on the heels of her shoes.

 

“Now I’m good,” she looks back into the dark depth of the office. “Good talk, Snow. See you on Monday.” Her hand grabs Bog’s elbow. “Let’s go home, love.”

 

*

 

They are walking the streets of Manhattan on their way to their apartment, feet slushing in the mess of water and snow that is New York winter, when Marianne snorts, and again, and then has a full blown fit of quiet snickering.

 

He raises an eyebrow at her.

 

“Snow – ah – she asked me if we could do – oh spirits - marriage counseling. Apparently there’s demand.”

 

“Was that before or after you screamed in her face? I’m pretty sure I heard some table kicking as well.”

 

“After,” she leans her forehead against his shoulder. “I told her that she could do it herself. Our conflict resolution way is patented.”

 

They walk on, past the glass windows of the shop, already decorated for Christmas, splashes of glimmering orange in the grey of early twilight.

 

“Are you going to ask me what it is?” Marianne tugs at his sleeve, and he rolls his eyes to the cloudy skies, less exasperated and more amused, yet letting her be a smart-ass she sometimes thinks herself to be (and is).

 

“Is it casual serenading?”

 

She grins.

 

“And sex. But mostly casual serenading.”

 

 

**(8) Dream 4: Oh, for a Voice like Thunder (Who can stand?)**

 

There is a War brewing. It’s a war-infested century for Mundies and Bog feels it in his bones (he is not the only one, but being one of the more territorial fables, he senses the unease and the boiling need to draw lines, build walls, raise the drawbridges, to defend, to protect).

 

_[He watches Mundie children, with clear heads and even clearer eyes leave for war, groups of them walking the streets while he tries to fix their piece-of-junk delivery truck.]_

 

They find out that the Wolf left when he fails to do his check-ups. Marianne watches the boy with his stupid trumpet stutter as they both try to get rid of him on one of the busier days – there is a wedding, and a bunch of funerals, and the prom week is coming, which means boutonnieres galore, and the damn child just stands there and asks them if everything’s _alright_.

 

Marianne _sings_ him out of the shop, and the girls in the line, curls and ponytails and flower skirts tight around their waists, clap for her and say she is “the bee’s knees”.

 

At night, the radio tells them of Europe, countries falling, and Bog smokes angrily on the fire escape. It also tells them to buy war bonds, to help the war effort, and that is when Mari promptly switches it off.

 

“Don’t,” she tells him. “This is not our war.”

 

He wants to tell her that their war stands tall in other worlds, and will continue to do so while they hide like cowards here, but he doesn’t.

 

_[Bog stands in front of the conscription office for an hour. It’s a sunny day, and the Star-Spangled Banner waves at him with excitement.]_

 

“How long,” he asks her instead, “will it be until our war finds us?”

 

“Let’s hope,” she unties the apron from her waist and throws it on the couch, “that we are ready for it when it does.”

 

Then she hits his ass with a broom handle and throws him a spare one.

 

“But for now, Mr Bog King,” she take a stance, her eyes shine golden with mischief and challenge and – his chest caves in a little, that he could ever think of leaving her, that he would think that blood and death would need him more than she does – love. “Defend yourself.”

 

 

 

**9 - Ginkgo, Peppermint, Red Raspberry, Orange Peel, Red Rooibos & Eleuthero Root**

 

It’s a matter of time, really, before the Adversary comes to them.

 

Are they ready? No one knows. But they certainly can pretend that they are.

 

Marianne watches the Man She Choose standing in the middle of the Bullfinch Street, rain pouring down his shirt. He is still holding the stupid pipe he used, but it’s all bend and dented now. Like it’s a final straw. Like it’s a reminder of a sanity long lost, dream forgotten, and she can almost see them, his translucent wings humming gently behind his back, and the soft glow of a street light coloring him golden.

His stupid hair is drenched. It clings to his stupid face, pale, panting, but strangely accomplished, and for a single moment, when he frantically turns to look for her among the debris of Bigby’s breath and the burning chunks of the wooden army and dark patches of blood on the pavement, she feels a stab in her chest at how handsome he is: wet, tired, slightly bleeding, with piercing eyes and hard-set jaw and a painfully straight back.

 

But victorious, liberated, and maybe, just a bit, her kind of heroic.

 

She drops her sword on the ground. The sound attracts him, and she makes a step forward. Her legs continue to promptly give up. She didn’t know she could be this exhausted.

 

This stupid weak body fails her, and her skin tingles, like the glamor is about to fall apart.

She lands on the asphalt knees first, and she can hear him screaming her name, the splash of his running steps dissolving in the downpour.

 

His arms, huge and wiry and so gentle wrap around her, and it’s like he has six of them, because she feels his fingers everywhere, checking every inch of her skin.

 

_Silly_ , she murmurs into the crook of his neck. _I’m just tired._

 

For once their phenomenal communication skills fail them – what a surprise – because her stupid handsome man cradles her to his chest – she is not weightless, and he is bleeding, and should probably see a doctor – and carries her somewhere, filled with light and sounds of people in pain.

 

 

 

In the end, they are the lucky ones – she is in fact just physically at her limits, and he will have a scar on his side (an honest to God scar, that will remain on him even after the glamor disappears, and she wants to see it already, drag her fingers down its line, see the cracked edge of his plating and the healing pink tissue underneath).

 

 

 

**(10) Dream 5: Dark riverbeds (To survive myself)**

 

_When she sleeps by his side, she dreams of trees, saplings sprouting from the scorched ground._

_They grow up, thick grandfather oaks burying their roots deep into the ground, leaves arching to the sun, and at their feet bloom flowers, their colors bright and juicy, and moss spreads around them, crawling up the dark creased bark._

_Her feet drown in vegetation, grass rising to her knees, tangling._

_Birds sing for her, their voices thrilling and light and fresh as the morning air._

_Hands wrap around her, familiar and kind, and rest on her belly, starting something within her she can’t name yet. It’s not lust, but a kindling, and it runs through her blood like a stumbling cascade of melt water._

She wakes up with her body arching, and she rubs her face against the scruff on his neck to wake up. She doesn’t ask why he smells of fresh grass and spring winds.

 

Marianne pulls oak leaves out of his hair and crushes them in the palm of her hand.

 

 

 

**11 - Hawthorn berry, Hibiscus, Rhodiola, Wood betony**

 

The first time Marianne pays attention to Prince Charming, she decks him in the face.

 

 

“You are a feisty one,” says the man, just as good-looking as the election poster he holds before himself. “You remind me of my first wife, even though you look more like the second one.”

 

“It’s astounding how little I care,” she replies and walks into the backroom, leaving Bog to handle the royal intrusion.

 

“My wife has an aversion towards attractive men who try to use her for personal gain,” he takes the poster given to him, and promptly sticks it under the counter. “I suggest you put ice on that. She has quite a punch.”

 

“But you are coming to the election?” their visitor presses on, hand rubbing his damaged jaw.

 

Bog, in all of his disinterest, chuckles, eyebrows arched. “If you knew something about us, or had a drop of common sense, then you would have already figured out that we do not like to participate in the activities of this community.”

 

“But,” and here Bog figures that no, Charming is nothing like Roland, because he is, first of all, _charming_ , and second, not too stupid. “I did. And then I asked myself: what can I do to persuade them?” The fable fixes his tie, that is already perfect, but a smart gesture is required. “I heard you like to trade.”

 

Bog leans on the counter, and stares at the mayor-to-be with exasperation.

“And what do you have that you can offer us?”

“Well, a free glamour-“

“Have them already. Anything else?”

 

The Prince rubs his chin and waves his hand around.

“What about your subjects? Your wife’s subjects?”

Spirits, this man is almost amusing.

“Well, you know at least something, but do not touch our subjects. I mean it. Don’t even come close to them.”

 

“Really,” the man casually drops his elbow by the cashier register. “And here I am hearing that that – what do you call it, Glasshouse?”

“Greenhouse.”

“- Greenhouse of yours is in dire need for repairs.”

 

“Alright, I’ll bite,” Bog pulls a barstool they keep behind the counter and sits down. His feet ache. “Have at me.”

Charming looks around their place, with almost honest curiosity. “Nice shop.”

“Say what you need to and go. It’s our lunch break time and you wasting it.”

 

“I would like to offer you official fable town maintenance.”

“We already ha-“

 

“For free. You need a vacation, don’t you think?”

 

*

 

“Are we really going to vote,” Marianne asks him when the candidate for the mayor leaves and they enjoy the quiet solitude of the pre-evening rush.

 

Marianne drinks one of her sister’s teas, its earthy thick smell lingering between them. They sit at one of their tables, her bare feet thrown over his knees. He massages her ankles.

Her skirt, flowery, flirty, bunches over her hips.

 

“Why not? I think the charter obliges us to participate.” He lets his hand wonder forth to her knee. Her eyes dart at him from over the cup, warning written into them. “Not to mention, we are such a pair of upstanding citizens.”

 

Marianne cups her tea in both hands and slides a bit down her chair to poke at his shoulder with her tow. “So which idiot are we voting for? The old or the man-whore one?”

Bog thinks.

Not about Charming or Cole, but about Marianne, and her pointy ears he haven’t seen for almost a year now, about the old tree stump in the center of the Greenhouse, and sun shining through her wings.

 

“I like this one,” he stabs his finger at the poster spread on the table, right into Charming’s questionably comforting self-assured face.

 

Marianne leans back, her lips pursed. Her eyes narrow, head falling a bit to the side. But it’s a moment, and the next one her mouth twist, trying to bite away the barking laughter, cheeks flushing.

 

“Oh. My. Spirits.” She cackles. “He _charmed_ you!”

 

Bog feels himself cringe. “What?”

 

“He is Prince _Charming_. That what he does, you big gullible bug!”

 

“He did not! I’m not some-“ Charming’s drawn face almost winks at him. “Oh. _Spirits_. HE _DID_.”

 

Marianne laughs so hard tears start streaming down her face. She wipes them, mascara smudging, and gets up only to sit on his lap, fingers feather-light on his neck and the back of his head. She kisses the corner of his suffering mouth.

 

“I feel molested,” he groans, hand rising to rub his temples.

 

She kisses his cheek. “Yeah, I’m surprised that you even let him talk to you. Hundred years ago you would have clubbed him on the head with a nearest jar and thrown him out by his jacket.” Her fingers trail down the row of button on his chest.

 

“Getting old, I guess,” he closes his eyes and lets head fall back. “Frau says this world has a habit of forcing change.”

 

Bog feels her lips on his neck, hand rubbing on his latest scar, and wraps his arm around her slender waist, another on the tender whiteness of her thigh.

She is very _very_ warm.

 

“Marianne?”

 

“ **Come here** ,” she breathes in his ear.

 

Her voice is soft and calling, with just the right amount of wanting, but something in it, the zing, the buzz, petrifies him.

He pulls away, and the chair creaks under them.

 

Her eyes, her beautiful eyes gleam at him with gold and amber and liquid fire and everything around them starts to dim into cotton-soft darkness, so calling, so welcoming.

 

“Marianne?”

 

It disappears in a blink. Her smile is sweet then concerned, but it melts away when he takes her wandering hand. He kisses her fingers. They tremble.

 

“What was that?”

 

She whimpers. Her eyes are unbearably wide, and she looks at her own hands like they don’t _belong_ , and at him, and she bites her lips.

 

“ _Bog_ ,” she asks, and he unconsciously presses her closer, because she is suddenly so delicate and frail. “What’s _wrong_ with me?”

 

*

 

“You are magic,” says one of the wizards, and the others nod in approval. If Bog were in good humor, he would have compared them to a bunch of bobble dolls. He isn’t.

 

“Wasn’t magic before,” Marianne replies skeptically, but her fingers are like a bunch of hooks catching on one another.

 

“Wasn’t before, now you are,” says some old lady Bog doesn’t know the name of. “Also pregnant. But mostly magic.”

 

Marianne stands perfectly still.

The whole sentence dissolves between them, the meaning of every single word slowly uncovering.

She reacts first, and waves her finger at them with a relieved smile.

 

“Very funny,” she settles her hands on her hips. “Can’t be pregnant. We tried. Can’t have kids.”

 

“Couldn’t before, can now.”

 

Bog puts his hand on small Marianne’s back.

 

“No, we can’t. We are different species.”

 

A little girl in a pink dress rolls her eyes at them.

 

“That’s because you are magic too, stupid.”

 

“I have a suggestion,” Bog leans to Marianne’s ear. “We wait until Frau Totenkinder returns and then ask again.”

 

Marianne makes a one-eighty and walks out of the door.

 

“I have a better suggestion,” her shouts fly from the corridor. “You take me to the hospital. Right now.”

 

*

 

“Yes, you are pregnant,” doctor Swineheart doesn’t have the best bedside manner, but he is a battlefield surgeon, so he is quite good at dodging flying objects.

 

They stare at the ultrasound, at a tiniest little black dot that is supposed to be their child.

 

“Are you fucking kidding me,” mutters the Fairy Queen, before clasping her hand over her mouth.

 

The Goblin King finds himself grinning like a moron.

 

“I’m so putting this on the fridge.”

 

 

**(12) Dream 6: No one has imagined us (rooted in the city)**

 

Marianne weaves roses out of red paper napkins – _she gives them back their dreams_ \- and makes him a crown out of them.

 

“Are you proposing to me?” his small ~~and tired~~ smile asks her. “Sorry, I’m already married.”

 

“Ditto,” she kisses him with the color of plum. “But I think we can afford a ridiculously messy work affair.”

 

She plops the stupid thing on his head and he proudly parades it the whole day long.

The Mundie kids with their cellular phones and thermo mugs find him _adorable_.

{“I can’t stop drinking this stupid tea. Do you put drugs into it?”}

{“No drugs. Just a tiny bit of magic.”}

 

 

_norestforthelewd: OMG look at these beautiful nerds_

_[The video is dark and a bit blurry. It’s an inside of a rustic café._

_A man, lean and very tall, walks into the shot with a cardboard box. He has a cheeky grin on his face and a crown of paper roses on his head. He sets the box on the counter and says something to the woman at the cashier. She is young(ish) with a curly pixie cut, short, skinny and very garage rock attractive. She laughs, dark red lips and white teeth, sparks in her amber eyes._

_Voice OC #1 (female, whispering): Alright, check this out. The hot chick is Marianne. She is the Goddess of Herbal Teas. She owns this place, probably, not sure? That dude has been working here since forever, and we are trying to figure out if they are banging. I’m not saying that that would be hot but that would be so hot – OKAY HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE._

_The man suddenly picks up the woman called Marianne, raising her like she is weightless and sitting her down on the counter. He starts singing, voice deep and rasp and accented. The woman looks to her side, her cheeks blooming with pink, pats his face and starts singing too._

_Voice OC #2 (female): HOLY SHIT, it’s a duet. They are actually dueting._

_The man runs his large hands up and down her hips, and she grabs a handful of his t-shirt and pulls him down to her._

_Voice OC #1 (female): Get a room. Get a room and have several hundred babies._

_Marianne pushes the man away, her legs swinging over the counter, and lands on the other side. She turns out even shorter than originally suggested. Someone starts to clap, as she cocks her eyebrow, and curls her fingers in a “come heather” gesture. The man smiles at her, and it’s kind and loving, and the crown falls down on his face. He walks to her around the counter, and before Marianne can finish the solo she tries to do – she barely reaches his armpit – he falls on his knees before her._

_Marianne: When my time comes around- Bog? Are you alright?_

_Her wraps his long arms around her, head pressed into her chest. She combs her fingers into his hair, fixes his crown, pulls out a stray twig._

_Marianne: What’s wrong, Tough guy?_

_He answers something, but next moment he rises, and she rises as well, her hands shooting over her head not to hit the ceiling. He sings for her, mischievous, but she glares in return._

_Marianne: Spirits, Bog, put me down before I break my skull over something!_

_He turns around, throws her over his shoulder and walks away into the room behind the counter. The patrons clap and cheer._

_Voice OC #1 (female): That’s it. I’m so asking if I can post this. If they ever come back. I hope they do. I ship them so hard.]_

_norestforthelewd: TEASHOP OTP UPDATE: THEY ARE MARRIED I REPEAT THEY ARE MARRIED_

 

 

 

**13 - Hibiscus, oatstraw, nettle, alfalfa & red raspberry**

 

Snow gives birth to Six. Fucking. _Puppies_.

They are literal _puppies_ of various degree of werewolf, and they _float_. In the air.

They are _flying puppies_.

 

Everybody is chipper about it. Everyone knows who the father is. Nobody cares.

 

Marianne doesn’t know how to feel about it. She ponders on it, while serving the morning crowd. It’s been a lot busier lately. She suspects that it’s because of the silly video, but she looks in the faces that pass, and the blind quiet adoration in them gives her unease. So do leaves and twigs she keeps finding everywhere.

 

 

Bog is unfazed, or at least pretends he is.

 

“There are so many things wrong with this community,” he flips through the paper during their break. Marianne follows his profile with her finger.

 

“I think I’m drugging people with fairy magic,” she says and taps on his back when his coffee goes the wrong way.

 

“What?” his voice does up, a sure sign of a quiet panic. “What makes you say that?”

 

Marianne rolls her sleeves, and stretches her arms before her.

“Watch this,” her fingers wiggle, and them two simple turns of her wrists and _snap_ – the smell is somewhere between electricity and burning wires, but a bunch of sparks her fingers produce are shining in green, blue and purple as they float down to the ground.

 

Bog touches one with a finger. It feels like a spit of hot oil.

 

Marianne claps her hands over every single one to make them go away.

 

“And the voice thing only happens when I really want something. Like right now, I’m **craving oranges** ,” she promptly pulls him back by his shirt as he darts up to get her _anything she wants_. “Sit your ass back down. I’m just proving a point.” She gently pats her still flat belly. “I don’t give in to the terrorist’s demands. No person, even pregnant, should want to eat this much.”

 

For some reason, the pregnancy does not faze them as much as the magic does.

 

 

[they honestly tried, even before they exile and the adversary and when Dark Forest enveloped them and hid all their secrets. it just never took]

 

 

 

“Six kids,” states Marianne loudly as they stand in the line to the new mayor’s office. “Must have been _ruff_.”

 

Someone behind them chuckles.

 

“Too bad Bigby is quitting as a Sheriff,” Bog replies all nonchalant. “Could have arrested her. For _littering_.”

 

“ _Whelp_ , nothing we can do about it,” she shrugs, and image of disdain and disappointment.

 

The door of the office opens, and the happy father himself walks out. He stops to share with them that he is not happy to see them at all. Probably because the past few month they were dicks to him. Marianne calls it a Pregnant Solidarity. Bog just finds it amusing.

 

“Not you two assholes,” he greets them.

 

“Problems?” asks the pile of muscles that walks behind. Marianne recognizes him as Beauty’s husband, and another person they will have to nudge out of the shop during the monthly check-ups. At least Bigby had a sense to filter what he says in their _very Mundie_ establishment.

 

Wolf pulls out a pack of cigarettes, stuffs one into his mouth and pauses before lighting it.

His eyes triangulate between Marianne’s hand on her lower abdomen, Bog’s arm wrapped around her and the apple Marianne is trying to shove into her face (it’s almost the size of her head, quite a sight to behold). His nostrils flare.

 

“Not really. Just a family of very rude fairies. Or whatever he is, I don’t know.”

 

“He is a goblin, but don't  _terrier_ self up about it,” Marianne separates herself from the apple long enough to wiggle her eyebrows at him.

 

Beast coughs. Bigby looks at him like he should rethink his whole life.

 

“I’m not going to miss this at all,” he promptly pushes his charge into his office and slams the door behind them.

 

 

Snow’s litter of flying half-werecubs is _sickeningly cute_. Marianne blames it on the hormones.

 

 

**(14) Dream 7: An invincible summer (pushing right back)**

 

“Fine,” Marianne gives up on another hot and stuffy night. “We are going to go to your favorite actual cannibal substitute grandmother, because this is getting ridiculous.”

She tugs at his hair and pulls a handful of foliage out of it.

 

 

“I grow plants,” he tells her, and Frau Totenkinder frowns.

 

“You read too many useless books. Mundies tend to write all kinds of nonsense.” She digs on one of her bookshelves. His arms itch. She points to Marianne sitting on one of bottomless chairs in her living room. “And this is what you get out of it. The Fairy Queen without magic? Shortest joke I’ve ever heard.”

 

“I don’t think you understand,” he pulls off his jacket to uncover his tattoo-engraved arms.

 

The sassy old woman purses her lips. “Oh, it’s pretty clear to me.”

 

Bog closes his eyes. _The sound of forest drives him deaf_. He grabs at something, liquid and solid simultaneously, splashing under his skin, and pushes it outward. There is a small _pop_.

 

“Holy Shit,” says his pregnant wife.

 

The murmuring of the Witches and Wizards of the Thirteenth Floor goes quiet.

 

His arms, the vines and flowers and thorns and branches, they grow on him, covering his limbs in a way clamps attach on the pier at the waterfront, tight bundles running down his shoulders and clavicles.

 

The Witch rubs a petal between her fingers.

 

“Does it hurt?” she asks him, pulling on his shirt so she can have a closer look.

 

“No, just itches,” as a proof, he scratches the base of one of the thorns close to his elbow, where his skin gains an irritated pinkish color. “Enjoy. Do you have a knife? I’ll have to cut them off.”

 

All in all, it doesn’t feel bad. A lot like his own plating.

 

“And you were planning on telling me about this _when_?” Marianne grabs a closest thing she can reach – turn out to be a tea cup, thankfully empty – and throws it at his head. Bog catches it and sets it on the nearest surface. (It’s from Frau’s favorite set, wouldn’t want to make her angry.)

 

“Hold your thought,” the lady combs through his hair. “You are about to have words to say.”

 

She pulls at something, invisible threats binding his body, the labor of her hands, full of care and expertise, the attention in her eyes just a touch troubling, and all of his skin feels like it’s coming undone, a weave unfurling, glamor falling apart like an old piece of tapestry, and he shrinks, rapidly – it happens every time, every summer when their glamors run out, he suddenly remembers that they are just _so small_. Also that flying is a thing,

 

Marianne drops off the chair to catch him in her cupped hands.

 

“Sweety,” she says very softly and he knows he must be in a lot of trouble. “You look like an anorexic leafy pinecone. No,” she brings him close to her face, and he can almost touch the tip of her nose, “you look like those boutonnieres I used to make you.”

 

Bog studies himself and the abundant greenery that seems to grow from right under his exoskeleton.

 

“It’s _that bad_ , is it?”

 

She nods her head, curling her lips, and pets his head with her fingertip, before The Witch interjects.

 

“Good news, you’ll probably be able to glamor yourself, if you try hard enough,” a huge volume opens before them. “Bad news, your Fairy Majesty, that your husband might now be one of the Old Gods, of fertility, rebirth and whatnot. Would explain your miracle of conception.”

 

A spidery bony finger with a neatly trimmed nail taps on the page with an illustration of something that was supposed to be a man but in fact was a mass of green squiggles, with two legs and two arms and a head, probably. The language is unreadable, but one thing is clear – Bog touches the tops of his head, combing through whatever grows there.

 

“I don’t have horns. Marianne, do I have horns? Will I get horns?” And then an after thought: “How am I going to explain this to my mother?”

 

Marianne groans. “Probably the same way I’ll tell her the joyous news. And the same way I’m telling my sister. I’m calling it “ _Here, look at this baby, we were blessed by Spirits_. Oh, _And_ _By The Way!_ ” and then I point at your bushy self.”

 

Bog flies up and raises his angry crooked moss-eyebrow at her. “You think you are so funny.”

 

Marianne snorts. “And so can you, honey, and so can you. Now, could you get human shaped again? Cause your child is telling me I’m starving.”

 

 

**15 – Black tea & Mint**

 

Bog _meditates_. Now that the plant life behaves, it’s almost bearable.

 

 

That’s what the Witch tells him to do. Something compels him to listen to her: maybe the old woman cautions hard eyes, or the dreams he continues to have –

 

_it’s the fire all over again, smoke everywhere, he can’t breath, he has to land, but when he does, his feet are stuck to the ground_

_he looks down and he is literally rooted, feet digging into the ground, legs going numb, and his arms start to itch_

_branches sprout through his forearms, leaves already bristling_

_he looks up and all he can see is the blue of the sky_

_and all he can hear is the sound of leaves in the wind_

 

-that keep him awake in the middle of the night.

 

 

Bog meditates on the living room floor until Marianne nudges him with her foot because there is moss starting to grow around him. He scrubs it off with a knife and blesses the Spirits – does that include himself now or..? – that they bought this apartment way back in the 19th century.

 

 

It’s that time of the year again, so they close up for a few days, pack their things, throw them into the back of the van together with whatever provisions they are sending to the Farm this time and drive their way into the New York state area.  Marianne waits till the last of the buildings disappears in the back view mirror, before taking off her slippers and throwing her legs over his lap. He takes his hand off the gearbox and squeezes her ankles.

 

She holds a pen box with his staff and her sword on her knees during their whole journey.

 

 

They arrive on the Farm by midday. Rose Red greets them, orders the farm animals around to unload the vehicle and shoves the blueprints of the Greenhouse improvements into Marianne’s hands. They walk a narrow path south, winding through the field all the way to the Great Woods. Marianne talks to Rose with a soft tone a mother, concerned for her child, like all the spite and bitterness was left back in the city, and Rose responds in a same way, their voices flowing and hands moving, laced with mutual respect, and, knowing Marianne, hearing things about Rose, something what Bog defines as a clear undertone of gratefulness.

 

They part with Rose a dozen meters short of the Smalltown and turn to walk west along the edge of the forest, air growing familiar and heavy with the smell of flowers, so many flowers blooming. The Greenhouse shows its corner around the bend, and Bog stops to marvel at it for a moment: tall glass walls, wrapped in vines, glass misty in places, summer windows open on the roof to let in the gusts of fresh air, and _fairies_ , so many fairies flying in and out, like swarms of colorful exotic butterflies, slashes of green, purple, orange, blue and golden on the background of the forest shade.

 

Marianne goes on walking, but carefully now, each step well thought of.

 

“Marianne!” He will always know who that voice belongs to, but he can watch how her face lights up every time when a fairy with a wings the color of sunrise crashes into her chest. “Spirits, Marianne, I’m _so_ glad to see you!”

 

“Dawn, I missed you too, ” Marianne holds up a finger so that her sister can sit on it, but Dawn chooses her shoulder instead. “I see you are doing well. What’s new? Did Roland try to take over again?”

 

There is an array of movement under his feet, and Bog looks down, where a small group goblins pours out of the forest, and he already notices Thang’s excited jumping and Stuff’s casual arm keeping him down.

 

“Sort of,” the younger sister swings her legs, “but not like you think, don’t start worrying, please! We handled it!”

 

He kneels down to look at his subject and they enthusiastically grab onto his fingers and try to report to him all at once, one voice overpowering another.

 

Marianne picks her sister by her waist. “We?”

 

“Sunny and I. And Boggy’s mom. Have I told you that she is like soooo amazing?”

 

The clique of his minions goes silent and very uncomfortable under his scrutiny. “What did my mother do?”

 

“She might have _kneedRolandintheunmentionables_. So we handled it. But I want to know _everything_ about the city! Marianne, Rose’s nephews can fly, do you know that?”

 

He wings flutter excitedly, and really, they cannot be mad at her for not telling, Marianne can’t, she loves her baby sister too much.

 

“I swear, Dawn, you have the wildest stories,” Marianne sets her sister back in the air and looks back at him, and there it is, the wicked and loving smile he will cherish until his breath.  “You coming, Wild thing?”

 

 

 

[Bog presses his hand, to the bark of the stump, and feels life spill from the tips of his hands, running through the ridges on the wood in tendrils of moss and crawling sprouts, and a few saplings. He imagines the Dark Forest, the way it was at its best: thick tree trunks, and the flowers the color of midnight sky, stars speckled in the water, and the curtains of luminescence, the sounds, the smells.

 

The tree stump blooms, tender primroses hiding among its roots.

 

For once, his mother doesn’t say a thing.

 

She takes his hand in hers and pets it.

 

He looks at her, and his throat runs dry.]

 

 

 

“You know what this means?” he asks Marianne beneath the pink shade of primroses.

 

“What?” She picks a petal and fans herself with it.

 

“We can go home now,” and his voice is almost wistful. “We can rebuild.”

 

“We can,” she presses her hand to her belly. It’s still flat – if the genetics of both of their species is anything to go by, this child will take its time. Or maybe it will be nothing like them at all. They just don’t know. “Or we can stay right here.”

 

“Right here?” He looks into the depths of the forest behind the dirty glass, an in a way, he can almost hear it talking to him with a hundred of voices, trees, grass, bushes, mushrooms, the smallest of flowers, their song in one choir of cacophony. He smiles. “Like an adventure?”

 

“Yeah,” Marianne spreads her wings – a bit singed, but still the most iridescent purple – and pulls on his hand of leaves and bark and moss. “ **I would like that**.”

 

 

_The cruel, hot summer_

_Led into the long, hard fall,_

_Becoming the dark killing winter,_

_Until spring replenished us all._

 

 

FIN


End file.
